by Leanne Davis
She knotted her hands in her lap, staring at them. Casual kissing was something else at which she was inexperienced.
“Besides there is one advantage to those pictures.”
She looked up, mystified, blinking in confusion.
He grinned. “I get to look at them, too.”
“You don’t.”
“I do.”
“But no…you’re not like that.”
“All men are like that.”
Her eyes rounded in horror. “You…”
“Getting a little personal here, aren’t we?” he laughed at her expression. “You’ve got a dirty mind. I looked at your pictures, but you were also Cassie’s sister so I couldn’t in good conscience…well, you get the picture.”
She bit her lip. “Do you think John looked at the pictures?”
“No, I don’t think John has looked at you naked. He’s been in love with Cassie for ten years, even before you took those pictures. I’m sure if he ever even glimpsed them, he knew it was you, Cassie’s sister, and he wouldn’t have anything to do with them. He always thought of you as being more his own sister than Kelly Reeves, supermodel, even in high school.”
Kelly let out a breath.
“In all these years, you’ve never run across this?”
She shook her head. “I never had anyone disapprove. My mother applauded me, and my sister tolerated me because she wanted me to get ahead. There was no one else who mattered. I had no father. I had no brother. I had no one else whose opinion mattered even the tiniest amount. And even Tim, he’s been too young for it to matter. But I see I’ve been stupid there, too. It won’t be long before someone, some little pervert classmate will show him.” She sighed as she slunk down in the seat. “Oh God, what will he think of me?”
“He won’t look, for one. Trust me on that. If it happens, Cassie will know what to say about you, she always does. She’s your biggest fan, and you know that.”
She finally eased the set of her shoulders and met his gaze. “Thank you. You handled this far better than I would have pictured. And you handled me, too.”
“No one handles you, honey. That would be like catching a tiger by the tail, it just doesn’t happen.”
Chapter Fourteen
Luke went back into the house to collect Tim. She should go back in and try to salvage the situation, but she couldn’t make herself do it. She’d been out in Luke’s truck, stewing, sure that Luke must be so embarrassed he’d avoid talking to her. But no, he’d been surprisingly cool about the whole situation, even making her feel at ease. The man was constantly surprising her. And making her smile.
Tim and Luke got into the truck, already having a debate about their favorite baseball pitchers. What was next for them? And what exactly were Luke and she now? Last night he’d made it clear they were lovers for only the night, but after taking her to his parents’ house and defending her over stuff he could have just blown off and not dealt with…What did it mean? What were they now?
Luke parked at the bakery across from Sarah’s shop. He and Tim jumped out, still talking, and Kelly followed, suddenly feeling tired and unsure. She was overloaded by the last few hours, and yet Luke was, well, for lack of a better word, happy. Yes, for the first time since she’d met him, Luke Tyler seemed happy. He was smiling, talking to Tim, and to her, far more easily and casually then she’d ever seen him. Okay, he was probably happy he’d had sex last night after so long, she got that. What she didn’t get was why Luke was still hanging out with her.
She pulled on his sleeve to slow him up and out of Tim’s hearing. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“Do what? Eat? I’m hungry.”
“Pretend last night was more than what it was.”
“Breakfast makes last night more than what it was?”
“Yes, all of this, hanging out with me, defending me to your parents, showing me to your parents, all of it is unnecessary. I know what last night was, and it was good for both of us, but you don’t owe me anything.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” he said as he sat down and picked up a menu. “Can we order now?”
“I don’t get you.” She ground her teeth in frustration. What was this?
He closed the menu and took her hand. “Look, no matter what, we can’t be a one-night stand. There’s too much history and way too much future for that. So we’re, I don’t know, what you call us, maybe friends. Can we just do that? Be friends. Have some fun, let this thing between us last while you’re here.”
Her heart leapt into her throat. She nodded. “Okay. Yes, I’d like that.”
“Okay, now can we order?”
“Sure.”
Luke got up and went over to where Tim already stood in line waiting to give their order to Claudia behind the counter. Did Claudia ever take a day off? Kelly shook her head. How did she know the goings on of Claudia? This small town stuff was getting to her. Luke smiled and leaned in to hear Tim talking. She was struck by the way his sweatshirt covered his bulky chest. The way his jeans stretched over his muscular thighs and butt. Looking at him made her heart speed up and her stomach flutter in ridiculous nerves. The fact that this man was with her, if only just for now, meant everything to Kelly. He was kind to her, and honest, and funny, and even though his life was half-shattered, he made every effort to make her smile, to tease her, to be nice to her.
What if it had been she who’d met Luke ten years ago in Portland? What if he’d met her first and not Shelly? Was there ever a time when Luke could have fallen in love with someone like her?
Probably not. Judging by the pictures of Shelly, she was everything that Kelly wasn’t. Kelly was the shallow model, who posed nude to make money. Shelly looked like the all-American college girl who probably was a straight-A student, into volleyball or swimming, and who hung out with her friends at the movies on the weekends. Shelly was not a woman like Kelly. Kelly, who purposely went about trying to make herself look like a party girl, half-slut, half-crazy at all of L.A.’s hot spots, just to create an image. An image that she used for the sole purpose of making money. There was no pride in her pictures, or her modeling. She only did it to get famous, all with one goal in mind—money.
Shelly wasn’t manipulative and cold in her pursuit of money. Kelly had never cared what she had to do to become rich and famous, she just made sure she did it. That she made it. Shelly at twenty-one wasn’t posing bare-ass naked over a truck bed, or bursting topless out of ocean waves. Shelly wasn’t willingly getting paid to be an X-rated fantasy.
So it was a nice distraction to wonder if Luke Tyler could ever have loved her, before he’d become so damaged. But someone like Luke, a decent, nice, caring, funny, dynamic, intelligent, well-meaning guy, would never have fallen head over heels in love with someone like her. She was the fantasy. Never the reality. At least, not for long. And not for permanent.
Shelly was that. The only reason someone like Kelly got even a second glance from Luke was because Shelly was dead. And Kelly didn’t remind Luke of Shelly. Kelly wasn’t the type of woman to remind a man of his wife.
Luke and Tim came back to the table, and Kelly shook her head. Why was she regretting things she’d long ago made peace with? She was who she was. She wasn’t looking for love. Nor did she want a life in a small, crowded town. She was where she’d always set out to be. No regrets. No embarrassment. She’d made her life exactly the way she wanted, after starting out with nothing. There was pride in that, even if she received unsolicited judgment from others.
“Hey, why the serious face?”
Just wondering if you could have ever loved me. But instead she said, “Just wondering what everyone here will think of you for being with me.”
Luke shrugged. “It’s not the nineteenth century. I’m not married. It’s perfectly acceptable for me to date whomever I want.”
“I think you overestimate your town. Don’t you see it? The way I’m looked at? Whispered about? Your mother’s reaction to me is the norm, not th
e exception. You’re a teacher here. Don’t you worry about that?”
“No. And since I don’t, forget it.”
“Luke, I’m…”
“I know who you are and has it ever occurred to you that I like it? I like the shock in people’s faces, the fact that you’re not Shelly, are nothing like her, you’re…”
“Notorious? Quite a thrill isn’t it?”
“No, that’s not what I was saying. I’ve been pitied and clucked over for three years. It’s kind of nice to not feel pathetic for once. It’s kind of nice to see a little shock in people’s expressions, after three years of getting only pity. I can’t explain this thing with us, any more than you can. We make no sense. We live completely different lives, with different pasts and futures, but right now, here in this moment, on this day, we work. Can you deny that?”
“No.”
“Then why do we have to overanalyze it? Who cares what anyone thinks? You think you’re notorious? Well, think of it from my point of view. What is one of the most famous, beautiful models alive doing in the smallest town imaginable with a high school teacher? A widowed, small time teacher?”
“There’s nothing small about you.”
“And there’s nothing notorious about you.”
“Thank you.”
“For last night? You’re welcome.”
She smiled. “No, for looking past it all, and seeing me.”
“I’m still a guy, I do my share of looking.”
She was about to answer when a young kid came up to the table, a student of Luke’s Kelly guessed by the respectful tone and shy glances the teen sent her way. The boy looked ready to wet his pants. Kelly wanted to sigh, as if this boy were a living embodiment of what she was trying to explain to Luke. She was too notorious.
Finally, the teen abandoned the lame excuse to talk to Luke and asked her for her autograph. He pulled out a magazine. At least, she wasn’t naked in it. She’d had dozens of those shoved in her face.
She signed it, what else was there to do? The teen glanced at Luke as if Luke had suddenly grown to ten feet tall.
Then, as if spurred on by the nice teen, another kid came. This one didn’t bother with polite conversation. He had her very first cover, which unfortunately, was on a men’s magazine. There she was, suddenly lying on the bakery table, naked and sandy, X-rated in the bright, sunny, Saturday morning light. There she was, her life, stark and ugly, but real. She wanted to cry for some inexplicable reason. She posed for those pictures willingly. In fact, she didn’t even bat an eye when she was asked at the age of twenty-one to do them. She was well paid, so she was happy about it. But now, she was ashamed.
Luke flipped the magazine over. “Lance, if you want an autograph, why don’t you start by saying hello to her? Her name is Kelly, Ms. Reeves to you. And in the future, don’t ever embarrass a lady, got it?
The teen, who was sixteen if he were a day, had dyed black hair and had earrings hanging from his nose and one eyebrow. He looked surly and rude, and teen-rebellious. He was getting a kick out of embarrassing her. But Luke’s matter-of-fact tone and candidness over the dropped magazine seemed to diffuse the kid’s attitude. Still, the kid didn’t budge. Luke stood up and his bulk made the kid look downright puny, standing there impudently.
“Pick up the damn magazine and get out of here.”
“Sorry, Mr. Tyler,” the teen mumbled as he suddenly grabbed his magazine, without glancing at Kelly. Then he spun around and headed back to his table with the other adolescent, hormone-filled teens.
“Do you need further proof of how bad I am for your reputation in this town, Mr. Tyler?” she asked quietly after Lance left, emphasizing the “Mister.” There was no denying that Luke was in a position of respect and authority, and he really shouldn’t be seen in public with her.
He laughed. Kelly’s heart was sinking with embarrassment, and feeling blameworthy about embarrassing Luke, but Luke was laughing. His head was tossed back, and his wide, manly neck was fully exposed as he chuckled without restraint. Then he had the audacity to smile and say, “Mr. Tyler’s esteem in those hormone-filled teens just went up about one hundred percent. Maybe they’ll finally even listen to me in class instead of sleeping.”
“You think that was funny?”
“Not for you, I see. Hey, really…quit worrying about my precious reputation. I’m going to be just fine. And what have I done exactly? Except to eat breakfast with my nephew and my nephew’s aunt? No one knows anything else. And if they did, so what?”
****
After breakfast Kelly said she was going over to see Sarah at her shop.
“Sarah’s store? As in Sarah Langston?” Luke asked, breaking off Tim’s and his conversation.
“Yes. We’ve become friends.”
“You have? When? She was the one person you and I agreed on.”
“Not anymore. She’s grown up a lot since I first met her. She’s actually quite nice.”
“That’s what John always claimed, but I didn’t see it.”
“Well, maybe your first impressions aren’t always correct about people.”
He grinned. “Point taken.”
He stopped walking in front of Sarah’s shop door and swung her around, embracing her right there on the sidewalk. “Tim and I are running some errands. You want to meet at the house later and go out?”
“Out?”
“Yes, out. Wasn’t that your plan for last night? A date? It’s Saturday night, why not?”
“I wasn’t planning a date. I was planning dinner.”
He lowered his voice, mimicking Kelly when she tried to make it so Tim couldn’t hear them. “You were planning a date and going to seduce me. Don’t go all soft on me now, notorious Kelly.”
“What about Tim?”
“Well, of course, Tim’s coming.”
Kelly grinned. “Of course! All right we’ll go out.”
They drove off. Something new stirred in her. She already missed him, and yet was also excited at the anticipation of seeing him next. She walked into the store, and had no more entered it when Sarah came rushing forward.
“Spill it.”
“Spill what?”
“Luke was hugging you right there in plain sight. What happened?”
Kelly smiled, and for the first time in her life, gossiped with her girlfriend about her date last night, her encounter with Luke’s parents this morning, and the bakery. Only when she had Sarah nearly weeping with laughter at the spectacle that Kelly described over her pictures, only then, did Kelly find the humor in it. And it made her feel happy. A simple, pleasurable, connection to another person kind of happiness.
Chapter Fifteen
“I’ll bet this isn’t quite what you had in mind,” Luke said as they were seated at the booth in the local pizza place.
“Actually, it is. I’ve been out with Tim before. This or McDonald’s are his only choices.”
“You’re not a diva, are you?”
“No. I’m not.”
“I like that about you.”
He grabbed the menu and was quiet as he perused it. He flung it aside after making his choice and leaned back in the booth, draping an arm along the back and looking at her. She squirmed underneath his stare.
She hadn’t been nervous with Luke until now because Tim had been with them all evening, but he’d scampered off to the video games, leaving them alone. And Luke was staring at her. She pretended the menu was impossible to choose from, when in reality, her brain wasn’t computing what she was reading. Her nerve endings were zinging with all things Luke—Luke’s gaze, Luke’s smile, Luke’s bulk filling up the little booth. Finally, she couldn’t take the scrutiny any longer.
“Why are you staring at me?”
He grinned that devilish grin that set her heart beating rapidly. “I like to look at you. Now I can without pretending I’m not.”
“Pretending not to?”
“Sure, I had to keep up my image of hating you, didn’t I? I couldn’
t let you know I found you desirable, how would that have looked? So I used to stare at you when you didn’t know I was looking. Then I’d ignore you, so you wouldn’t catch on that I, too, was one of your adoring fans.”
She snorted. “I didn’t know that.”
“Well, I figured after last night, I think you pretty much figured out I like you.”
“Don’t. Be different.”
“Don’t what? And why do you look like I just kicked you?”
“It takes no talent to look this way. I was born looking like this.”
“Lucky me.”
“No. It’s not so lucky. It’s not like you’re complimenting me. So you find me attractive. So do hormone-filled Lance and his pack of idiots. That doesn’t mean you like anything more about me. Men have been staring at me since I was thirteen, for all the good it’s done me.”
Luke’s smile faded.
“You never used to look at me that way. And I liked that.”
“I’ve always looked at you, that doesn’t make me one of those idiots. Don’t get all prickly on me because of what happened earlier. I’m not some pervert, looking at you in a magazine. I’m the guy who slept with you last night, had a great, no, a fantastic time and I’d like to do it again. So quit acting like I can’t like you, and the way you look at the same time. In fact, that’s usually how this attraction thing works. I mean, I hope you’re not repulsed by my looks. Do you think when John looks at Cassie, he only ever thinks about what a terrific mother and housekeeper she is? Or do you think somewhere in there he notices she has amazing breasts?”
“Did you just comment on my sister’s breasts?”
“Tell me you get my point.”
She turned the little sugar packet next to her up and down in her hands. She watched the granules fall before finally nodding. “I get your point. I’m being a tad over-sensitive.”
“Yes.”
“I just…”
“I do. I like you for more than what I’m staring at. In fact, I wouldn’t have slept with you if that was all I liked about you, considering all the complications you come with.”
